Document collaboration is a way by which multiple document editors can make edits to a central copy of a document. The edits made by each contributing author is collectively captured. In some instances, a primary editor may then accept or reject edits or content contributed by the other authors. There is a variety of document collaboration software in the market that enables the functionality described above. However, as indicated, such document collaboration software is geared toward multiple authors working together. Often, a primary author has to be designated and contributing authors have to be identified.
In a more day-to-day occurrence, users create documents (e.g., Word® documents, PowerPoint® slide decks, etc.) that they distribute to one or more users for review. Often times, a recipient of the document may have contributions to the documents in the form of one or more edits. The receiving user may then return an edited form of the document back to the original user. Unless the original user installs document collaboration software, hassles with designating authors, and sends documents through the document collaboration software, the user will not be able to track changes made to the document. Such a process would be time consuming, expensive, and would also require the user to go completely out of his normal routine to get the process established. For an average user who sends out dozens of documents a day and returns quite a few back with edits, the document collaboration software is just not an option.
In the normal scenario, when a user receives an edited version of a document from another user (that the user originally sent to the other user), the user may or may not know whether the document was actually edited by the other user. Also, even if the document was edited, the user may have no way of realizing what the changes were, and so would not be able to accept or ignore (or at the very least, acknowledge) the changes.
Overall, the examples herein of some prior or related systems and their associated limitations are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the following Detailed Description.